Tuesday, July 30, 2013

This month has flown by... We had looked forward to this event since beginning of the year (or even longer), and today is the last day together of the two week long vacation.

Well, this is a public blog, so I'm not quite comfortable yet to share the pictures and stories on here; (until I ask others if it's okay to post their pictures, right?) So I will tell you my part of the story.

For example, we are at outdoor pageant in Palmyra NY. We were wearing matching shirts (31 of us) that was specially made for this occasion.

The field the pageant was held.

At the end of the pageant, when we were getting ready to leave, my husband asked "where is L-chan?" I was sitting at the end of the row, and didn't realize other family members had already gone to avoid the traffic. I thought Lisa followed my sister-in-law's family who parked their vehicle in the same area as ours. So, I took A-chan with me, and started walking to the parking spot as fast as we could to catch up to the rest of the family.

Once I got there, I couldn't remember where our van was, and I didn't see my sister-in-law anywhere. I got this aweful feeling... there were SO MANY people, and I felt like I was lost too, separated from others. Then K-kun came screaming, "did you find her yet?" I was so scared of the thoughts that came next. My mother-in-law stayed with the rest of my children, and my husband and I started going back to the pageant ground.

I grabbed one of the security to ask where I could go to find my child if she was already found. He didn't know, but he used his walkie talkie to find out. Then the other security guard approached me and looked at my shirt, and said "follow me, I know what you are looking for". He walked slowly as he guided me to a place (that's what I thought) I wanted to run, but he kept telling us to slow down. He didn't say that they found her. I was still in panic, but little relieved that others were notified to look for her in a blue shirt.

After seeing Lisa guarded by two security guard on her sides approaching us from the crowd, I then, realized that they were moving toward us too. That's why the security guard kept telling us to slow down because they were moving too.

I hugged her so tight, tight, tight, tight!!! I asked if she was scared when she found that she was lost, she said she was. She said it was about 20 seconds until the guard asked her if she was lost. (I don't know exactly how long it was, but sounded like she wasn't completely lost, but with security guards for the whole time. So I was relieved.

We came back to the van, and K-kun and T-kun was relieved as well, as they were worried sick. What a night it was. We thanked Father in Heaven for the protection and we head back to the hotel. It was the second day of this two-week-long family gathering, and as I said in the beginning, today is the last day, and everyone who was visiting us goes home tomorrow.

Oh, one more thing... I turned on the children's music in Nursery's room at church, when I was with M-chan the other day. I had listened the whole CD almost every Sunday, (there hadn't been anybody who watches kids in Nursery, so I stayed with M-chan in Nursery.) so I skipped the songs until I thought it was closer to the end and pressed "Play" button. Guess what song came on! "I Have a Family Tree!"

I have a family tree with branches by the dozens.
I have grandpas, I have grandmas, I have uncles, aunts, and cousins.
(When) it's reunion time, no matter what the weather, it is such a happy day
When the fam'ly gets together.

What are the chances, I picked the right song for the day! It was truly a fun experience for my children to see their cousins who live far away.

I thank my parents-in-law for providing such a wonderful time for us to enjoy the time with each other and learn from each other.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

As usual, L-chan had been asking me to make Origami creations together, so after seeing this, I had to make one!
As soon as I started folding, (I referred the diagram here. I realized it wasn't hard; it's actually the same instruction to fold hearts. It's just you need to fold 12 of them, and put them together.

That's it.

But, the last step of assembly may be tricky. I had no trouble the first time, but with the second one I just couldn't get it to stay together.

So. I will give you some tips.

1. At the assembly of the last piece, put the outside together first. (It might have explained it on YouTube, but I only saw the diagrams, and it was on mute.)

2. Just calm down, if it gets difficult. Your patience is getting tested. You can do this!

3. I like making things with smaller pieces of Origami, but if you have a regular 11cm x11cm origami papers, then you might want to make one the bigger size than I did. You might find other instruction YouTube more helpful, but the link above is the one I watched.

(4. This tip is for a experienced Origami folders) Is it just me, but I found many English origami instructions have extra steps at the beginning to make creases. I think you can skip some steps and go right into making the first basic pattern.

I made the third one on the way to the beach today. I think I can make one in about 20-25 minutes. I will experiment with colors the next time. You know what I think it'd be cool is that use black background, and origami paper that are double sided. What you think?

If you make one, or had made one (I've seen this before yesterday too), what was yours like? My kids, especially L-chan, loved it! I hope you are enjoying the summer and some fireworks!

P.S. I was just told about a site called Light Up Nippon. (Light Up Japan) I didn't know about it till now, but it's a cause to raise money to deliver fireworks to the earthquake affected areas in Japan. The date is on August 11th. Nice! Thank you for sharing this, my dear friend. I'll be thinking of you and people in Tohoku.

P.P.S. One of my instructor I met while attending Utah State University was a fireworks engineer. I just remembered that.